It would, indeed, have taken a shrewd observer of human nature to forecast the Um-ul-Pasha’s next move. Having failed to secure her end, she wasted no time in negotiations, but threw herself into the arms, figuratively speaking, of Jamileh Khanum, with whom she had been at daggers drawn ever since the young wife had entered the harem. Angry with her husband and jealous for her boy, Jamileh Khanum displayed no inclination to stand upon ceremony when she saw the prospect of gaining such a powerful ally, and the reconciliation was sealed over the sleeping form of little Najib Bey, upon whom his grandmother lavished all the vituperative epithets that occurred to her, for the purpose of averting the evil-eye. Before the evening of that day mother and grandmother had united in a league against Azim Bey. The son of the Hajar woman was to be displaced at any cost, and before another day was over, M. Karalampi had been informed that his services were retained on behalf of this new claimant to the rights of Hussein Bey. Unfortunately, from the ladies’ point of view, the negotiations which had so nearly been crowned with success in the former case had been allowed entirely to fall through, and a change in the Padishah’s _entourage_ had removed the persons on whose help M. Karalampi had relied. It was necessary to begin the work all over again, and to set about it in a different way, but M. Karalampi still contrived to keep himself in the background, while all that the distracted Pasha knew was that his mother and his favourite wife were now bosom friends, and that this boded mischief to his elder son. He could act decisively enough, however, when the issue was a clear one, and he took his measures at once. Azim Bey should accompany him on the progress he was about to make through the country inhabited by the Kurdish tribes, in order to keep him out of harm’s way, and Jamileh Khanum should come also, that she and the Um-ul-Pasha might not have the opportunity of weaving their plots together in his absence. The plan was no sooner decided upon than it was put into execution. As before, Cecil and Azim Bey, with their attendants, received orders to start first, spending a few days at Said Bey’s house at Hillah, where the Pasha’s great cavalcade would pick them up.